That Which I Cannot Live Without
by OliviaJane
Summary: Touch, such a simple act that we all take for granted until the touch of the one we love, the one who owns our heart and soul, is threatened with being taken away from us forever. ONE-SHOT AU/AH/CANNON PAIRING. My "For the Love of Jasper" Contest Entry.


"**For the Love of Jasper" One-Shot Contest **

Title: **That Which I Cannot Live Without**

Pen name: **OliviaJane**

Existing work: **N/A**

Primary Players: **Alice and Jasper**

Disclaimer: **Stephenie Meyer owns any Twilight characters that may appear in this story. The remainder is my original work. Copyright 2009 by the author writing under the pen name, OliviaJane. No copying or reproduction of this work is permitted without my express written authorization.**

**To see other entries in the "For the Love of Jasper" contest, please visit the C2:  
www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/community/For_the_Love_of_Jasper_Contest/72564/**

**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o**

**A/N: This story is very near and dear to my heart and I am thrilled to share it with all of you. ENJOY! Song link on my profile. If the story doesn't get you, I promise this song will. **

**I really can't thank **_**staceygirl aka jackbauer**_** enough for all she does to make my stories reader worthy. She is absolutely the most amazing beta!**

**Now, grab so tissues and hang on.**

**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o**

**APOV**

_**Everytime We Touch**_

_**by Cascada**_

_Your arms are my castle; your heart is my sky.  
They wipe away tears that I cry. (I cry)  
The good and the bad times, we've been through them all.  
You make me rise when I fall._

_'Cause everytime we touch, I get this feeling.  
And everytime we kiss I swear I could fly.  
Can't you feel my heart beat fast? I want this to last.  
Need you by my side.  
'Cause everytime we touch, I feel this static.  
And everytime we kiss, I reach for the sky.  
Can't you hear my heart beat slow...  
I can't let you go.  
Want you in my life._

**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o**

Beep……beep………beep……………………………………….

"Jasper…Jasper," his name slips from my lips as my hand desperately reaches out to clutch his as my mind falls hopelessly back to a happier time.

**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o**

Touch, such a simple act that we all take for granted until the touch of the one we love, the one who owns our heart and soul, is taken away from us forever.

I'd come to a point in my life that I depended on Jasper's touch so much it was no different than my need for food and water.

_How does one survive without these simple necessities? How can I live without the touch of my Jasper?_

It all started out so simple really, two five-year-olds and a school yard playground. I'd fallen down during a rambunctious game of Duck, Duck, Goose, and skinned my knee rather severely. Well at least from a perspective of a five year old. It was that day that Jasper became my light and my savior. It was he who was there to hold my hand as the school nurse dabbed and dug the tiny bits of asphalt from my torn and bleeding knee.

She'd tried shooing _my_ beau back to class. _My beau _that is how Jasper had referred to himself that fated day Mrs. McKinney sat us at the same table. It was only the first day of Kindergarten. Who could have known what would come of it?

I was completely taken and mesmerized by the curly tow-headed little boy with his out of place Texas accent, and it was more than obvious to everyone that he was quite smitten with me as well. Love at first sight I dare say?

Our mothers thought our budding romance was the cutest thing on earth. My daddy however, who always looked to the future, thought otherwise. Boy did our relationship make dear old dad's heart ache at the loss of his little girl from day one.

Jasper adamantly refused to leave my side, and had to be carried off kicking and screaming by the principal of all people, who'd come to cart the stubborn little monster back to class.

My wails of protest and Jasper's little steeled-toed Army style munchkin boots had Principal Barns rethinking his plan to separate us, and Jasper was back at my side in a matter of minutes. Instantly our hands threaded together, and we held on as if our lives depended on it.

From that moment on, he could always be found at my side. He was the one who was there to wipe away my tears when the neighborhood comedian, Emmett McCarty, decided the new pixie cut my mom gave me in fifth grade would be the butt of all his jokes.

"Come on Jazz," Emmett pleaded when Jasper put him in a head lock and refused to let him up. Emmett may have been bigger and older, but my Jazzy had superhuman strength when it came to protecting and defending my honor. He'd always been amazing that way.

"Dude, she looks like a boy. Didn't know you swung that way my man. Sorry. Give a bro a break," Emmett pleaded, only adding to the punishment Jasper was about to unleash on him.

"Emmett," Jasper seethed. "Open your mouth one more time, and it will be the last thing you ever do," he warned. I must say my man could be fierce, but he was always a fair. He always gave people the benefit of the doubt and thought people deserved a second chance.

"Okay, okay, I give," Emmett chuckled deviously, an immediate sign he wasn't even near ready to put a lid on it. "So what it like kissing _Al-len_?"

That had been it. Jasper released Emmett from his grasp, jumped to his feet, and stomped the idiot right in the balls. "See how funny you think it is when you can't walk for a week, jerk."

Turning and seeing the horror on my face, Jasper's anger instantly dissolved. "Come now Ali, let's go home." Just like that he took my hand in his, and it was as if the whole incident never happened. A calm and peace settled around me.

I don't know what it is, but Jasper's always had the ability to smooth out my emotions like that. He's very gifted, if I do say so myself.

That's how it was the first time he kissed me, I mean _really_ kissed me. I just had this feeling it was going to be _that_ night, and my anxious nerves had me so hyped that I was acting as if I'd drank a case of Red Bull.

We were in the seventh grade and wandered away for the spring dance, settling ourselves in the gazebo in the courtyard outside the gymnasium. Well Jasper settled, I fidgeted.

"Alice," he cooed, oh yes, gifted remember. My man could coo a girl's socks off from the age of twelve, much to my chagrin. It always gave him the upper hand, dang-it!

He needed no other words. Just my name said in that tone, and the feel of his hand stroking the back of my neck was all it took.

He looked deep in to my eyes, like he could see straight into my soul, and the next thing I knew our lips were meeting and moving in slow synchronization. It wasn't that fumbling kind of kiss one usually experiences for their first kiss. No…it was…God there aren't even words.

It was sweet, it was innocent, and it was more than just a little bit life altering. I knew from that moment, there was no longer any me, and there was no longer any him. From that point on there was only us.

_Sealed with a kiss_…no truer words had ever been spoken.

Touch, yes, it was definitely one of the required necessities of life. I never realized the depth of that requirement until I was fifteen, and daddy came home early from work one day to find Jasper and I shamelessly groping one another on his brand new leather sofa.

"Oops," I giggled nervously trying to shift my clothing back into its proper position. I swear by the look on Jasper's face as he gazed in fear back at my daddy, he was looking through the gates of hell. Like they were about to open up and my daddy was going to deliver him promptly to Satan himself for swift and immediate judgment.

"Oops, that's all you have to say for yourself? You to your room," daddy pointed to me. "And _you_," I felt a shiver run through Jasper as his hand released mine, and my dad directed his wrath toward the love of my life, "get the hell out of my house, and don't_ ever_ come back!"

"What?" I screeched. "Not fair!" No! No, no, no!" I stomped my feet like a two year old in protest.

"NO?" my father yelled, madder than I'd ever seen him in my whole life. Honestly, up until that very moment I couldn't recall him ever raising his voice in anger towards me. Daddy's little angel, that was me.

"Alice, it's okay," Jasper reached out to take my hand, but thought better of it when my father strode toward us. "I'll go. I'll see you later."

"Like hell you will. This little romance between the two of you has gone on way too long. It stops here, and it ends now. I told your mother this would happen. But, does anyone ever listen to me? Good God, you better get out of here now, Jasper, or I can't be responsible for what might happen to you if you don't," daddy warned menacingly. "You better never let me catch you putting another hand on my baby again."

That was the one and only time I'd ever feared my father. I swear if it were possible there would have been smoke coming out of his ears and nose. Fierce didn't even come close to describing the look that over took his whole being.

Jasper scrambled around the opposite side of the sofa away from my father and bolted for the door. "I love you Al-i," he called over his shoulder. "Always and forever."

Well those last three words didn't help my case any. I was grounded to my room for two weeks, and forbidden to see Jasper ever again.

I ran balling all the way to my room. I spent the entire two weeks crying, pleading, and dreaming of the way it had felt to have Jasper's hands running over my body. It was pure and simple self inflicted torture. Addicted, I had definitely become addicted to his touch by then.

Luckily for me, while she wasn't happy with my behavior, my mom was in my corner, and some how by the grace of God, she convinced daddy that keeping Jasper and I apart would only make matters worse.

He agree begrudgingly to let us continue to see one another as long as we adhered to the strict conditions he imposed upon on us. Number one and most important of all being that we swear on the Bible, yes literally on the Bible, to _never_ have sex of any kind.

Honestly, I didn't know what it was with the words ever and never with my father. He tossed them out like they were a dime a dozen.

Our mom's had giggled, and even Jasper's dad chuckled at hearing this condition, but my daddy was dead serious. My mom, from her seat at the table, actually rolled her eyes admonishing daddy in front of us all of us. "Now Abner, I know Alice is your baby, our baby, but we have to be realistic. No matter how bad you want it, no sex _ever_, isn't going to happen, and I'm not about to make our daughter swear in front of God and country something she will break sooner rather than later. Sorry honey. I'm with you on everything else, but this one condition isn't going to work."

Looking around the table, I was a little more than thrilled to see Jasper's parents nodding in agreement with what my mom had said. Jasper looked like he was praying for God to come and take him home to Heaven as his foot tapped nervously against mine under the table as he sat across from me. Daddy said no hands, he never mentioned feet. I smiled at Jasper conspiratorially.

The promise we'd made that night led to us being a very sexually frustrated bride and groom the day of our wedding. We'd promise to wait, even swore in the name of God on the family Bible, and some how we'd kept it.

That one promise had a domino effect on many of the decisions when it came to my wedding though. It darn near killed my father when I refused to wait to be married until after graduating from college. Oh no, me and my man were bound for eternity exactly one week, right down to the hour, after walking across the stage and accepting our high school diplomas from none other than Principal Barns. Yes, the same Principal Barns who'd tried separating us all those years before.

Due to my dire need to get into my man's pants, I went with simple versus extravagant, short ceremony versus traditional. From beginning to end, Jasper and I were in and out of there in three hours flat, much to the displeasure of our mothers, who both wanted big and fancy, and my daddy who knew that his sex ban was finally coming to an end come sundown.

His baby girl was off to throw her innocence willingly out the window of Jasper's brand new Toyota Tundra, a graduation gift from his parents.

Our first time was great, but the second, and the third, the…oh there's been too many to keep count, were more than I ever imagined that they would and could be. Whether sweet and loving, playful and fun, rough and domineering, Jasper has always made me feel worshiped. He had always been attentive, using his hands and his body to show me nothing but complete and utter reverence for each and every part of my body right down to the tips of my toes. If I let him have his way, he would have always made it all about me.

_Selfless, my man is selfless. _

From that very first touch on the playground, he has thoroughly spoiled me with his innocent touches, and sweet caresses. Twenty-one years of complete and utter devotion, what more could I ask for?

**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o**

Twenty-one years for what? To sit helplessly by and watch the love my life waste away right before my very own eyes.

I'd spent many a lonely and agonizing hour contemplating it all. Now that I need his touch as much as I need air to breathe, would it have been better had I of never known it to begin with? Would it have been better to have spent all these years never knowing what I was missing, because hell, my heart aches to the point of being debilitating knowing that I may just lose the very thing my life depended so desperately on.

_Jasper…his touch…my life line._

What the hell was I going to do if he wasn't here to hold my hand, caress my cheek, make maddening love to me, and hold me in his arms as if our lives depended on it? I was crazy with worry over losing him…the sight of him, the taste of him, the smell of him, but above all those, the feel of him.

You see my Jasper lies before me, with each breath he takes; it may be his last, as he battles one of the most pathological diseases known to man, Chronic Leukemia. It sucks the life right out of you inch by agonizing inch. You go to the doctor and nothing, nothing registers, because it hides out and lays in wait, lurking in the shadows remaining anonymous.

When you're least expecting it, it rears its ugly head. Showing its face willingly with a mocking smirk as finally the tests come back positive as to what had been secretly killing you just a little bit more each day.

I pay special attention to how much pressure I put behind each stroke my hand makes up and down his arm and the caresses my thumb makes back and forth across the top of his hand that seems to be forever intertwined with mine.

_I can't let go._

One more thing this damn disease had tried taking from us…touch. My man bruises easily and too much pressure causes him indescribable pain and discomfort. But he's fought tooth and nail for those light caresses. He's not about to give them up. You see, he needs mine as much as I need his. His life literally depends on mine. That's why I can't leave his side, why I haven't been home in weeks.

I'm brought out of my painful reverie by the sound of Jasper's raspy voice. "Promise," he said nearly inaudibly. I move the best I can so that my ear is close to his face so he doesn't have to overexert himself, and use energy he just doesn't have, "promise me you'll go on. That you won't let my absence stand in the way of you achieving all your dreams," he demands, reaching to run his hand lovingly over my swollen belly.

_A life for a life._

As the love of my life takes his last breaths, our daughter will soon take her first. Life can sure be cruel sometimes.

"Jasper…" I whisper resting my hand over his, lacing my fingers with his, nearly overwhelmed by emotion. I've just about reached the deepest depths of my despair, and can see no way out of it. I pray to God that he will shine some light on us soon.

It is all just too much to handle. _How can I ever achieve my dreams when they all included him? How do I find joy where there is no hope?_

"Promise," he said sternly using all his strength to bring my hand to his lips as he flashs his beautiful tired eyes at mine, knowing full well there has never been a moment I could resist the power of his charms. He has never been one for fighting fair.

"I promise," I choke with as much sincerity as I can muster. It will be the first and last promise I ever break to him. For as much as the world around me may move forward, my life, the life I'd built with Jasper, the only life I've ever really ever known, is over and no way would I, the Alice he stares back at, ever be able to go on.

**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o**

Beep…Beep…Beep…

I woke with a start to the obnoxious beep of the alarm clock. I still hadn't been able to convince my man that waking up to a soothing radio station every morning would make for a much happier wife. But this morning I was far from irritated, I was thankful that it had just been a nightmare, a terrible dream, and our real life nightmare had been over for sometime now.

"Mmmm, good morning beautiful," Jasper coos as he snakes his big strong arms tightly around my waist drawing me to him.

"Morning," I said turning in his arms to face him brushing my nose against his.

Without hesitation he seared his lips to mine. A morning tradition we'd started the moment he walked out of that Godforsaken hospital four years earlier, and he promised to always greet me with love and passion at the dawn of every new day.

This morning, as on most mornings, our passion is halted by the attack of our four-year-old darling monster Anna, as she bounds into our room and propels herself onto the bed with precision and grace landing dead center between me and her daddy, and squealing like a banshee like she always did when she saw us kissing in bed.

_Seriously, God does have a sense of humor people. _

Just a little comic relief he'd given us to brighten the darkened cloud that loomed ominously farther and farther away each year. In a year, barring in problems or complications, Jasper would be considered cured, and finally after six very long years, we will all rest and breathe more easily.

"Mommy…Daddy, kiss me, and let's go eat choco-chip pancakes," Anna giggled burrowing even farther between us.

Jasper quickly nipped my bottom lip, such a tease my man was, and then counts down our attack. He would be paying later for making my already urgent need for him grow exponentially.

As his count down reached zero we both lean in and plant wet and noisy kisses on either cheek of the blessed angel God gifted to us when we thought all hope was lost, tickling her sides until she cried uncle in her adorable lisp.

**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o**

Touch, such a simple act that we all take for granted, but not me, not anymore. From the moment Jasper defied all logic and walked, yes walked, out of that hospital, I made sure every time I touched someone, anyone, I make certain it counts.

**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o**

**A/N: Thoughts? Comments? Did you need tissue? If you didn't listen to the song, go now, it is this story from beginning to end. The fit couldn't be anymore perfect. :)**

**As I said this story is near and dear to my heart, and I am dedicating it in the memory of my dear fiancé Kevin Albert Koons who was not as fortunate as Jasper, and lost his battle with Chronic Leukemia. He definitely encompassed all the best qualities of all the Cullen boys, and saying he is missed does not even come close.**

**I must say I am speechless. I found out that this story has been featured on the Fornication Station Blog. If you're intesested in checking out this blog and/or the site itself here is the link, which I have also added to my profile. www DOT fornicationstation DOT blogspot DOT com/?zx=3d73663011aa3fbc  
**


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